Finding a Frame for your Story

I took this picture just outside the Place Stanislas in Nancy, looking into what is said to be the most beautiful square in the whole of France. It was designed by Emmanuel Héré and lavishly embellished by Jean Lamour, whose wrought iron archway draws the eye into my photo.

I'm a crap photographer, but I like the way the dark green foliage in shadow at the front of the picture anticipates the lighter tree in the square, and then the one that we can glimpse beyond that. I like the contrast between the pale sky and the gilded filigree of the railings, between the harshness of the foreground and the softness of the distant spire. Really, I suppose, it's two separate images, ones superimposed on the other, both of them echoing and resonating together.

Just as I've attempted to frame one view with another, so one story can provide the setting for another when you are writing fiction. You can do this through flashback, using the present as a lens through which to view of the past, or you can use your subplot, making the actions of the minor characters provide a commentary on the behaviour of your protagonists. As with my picture, there should be plenty of similarities and contrasts between the two layers in your story, in order to make what can sometimes be a complicated process worthwhile. If you can pull it off, your narrative will have greater depth, more nuance, more subtlety than it would if it consisted of a single plot strand, rather than two inter-related ones that counterpoint each other.

Give Yourself Room to Manoeuvre (Subplots!)

When you're thinking about a story, or are actively involved in writing one, it is easy to get transfixed by the main event and concentrate on the dramas and adventures of your central characters, but don't neglect the preoccupations of your minor characters - Ricky Gervais spun a whole television series out of this with Extras, and if it's good enough for him....

Exploiting the potential offered by your subplot, which documents the trials and tribulations of the bit part players, can have two major benefits to your story as a whole.

Firstly, it can provide a valuable counterpoint to what's going on at the heart of the book -- you can revisit similar issues, but in a minor key.  It can give you a variations on a theme capacity.  For example, if your story is about infidelity, you might have a scenario where the hero and heroine manage to resolve things happily, but a more minor couple don't. It can give you scope to look at the same thing in the number of different ways, which is an excellent method of adding depth and resonance to your narrative.

Another in credibly important tool provided by the subplot is that it is a means of notching up dramatic tension. You can cut away from action in your main plot to a scene in your subsidiary story, leaving the your reader breathless with desire to know more.

And that's what it's all about...

P. S. Hugo Williams has written a wonderful poem called Heroes of the Subplot - it's well worth tracking down and reading.